Search for a Holocaust monument designer launched

The National Capital Commission (NCC) has officially launched a request for proposals from prospective designers of the National Holocaust Monument.

The commission, which is run under the auspices of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, sent out a release on May 16, with links to relevant websites where it asks “teams of professional artists, architects and landscape architects to submit their credentials and examples of prior experience as the first stage of a two-phase competition to build a monument to honour the victims and Canadian survivors of the Holocaust.”

Earlier this year, the NCC announced that the monument would be erected at Lebreton Flats, across from the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

The NCC’s deadline for submissions is 3 p.m. EDT, Sept. 4. The “Request for Qualification” document is now available on the NCC website.

“This competition is open to Canadian-led teams that may include international participants,” the commission said. “A seven-member jury composed of accomplished professionals in their fields will recommend up to six finalist design teams, based on qualifications and past experience.”

According to the NCC, the jury is composed of art and design professionals, content and education specialists, and a Holocaust survivor. They include historian Irving Abella, artist-curator Ydessa Hendeles, artist Herzl Kashetsky, architect Raymond Moriyama, executive director of the National Holocaust Development Council Margi Oksner, Holocaust survivor Vera Schiff and landscape architect Greg Smallenberg.

Ultimately, decision-making responsibility falls to Foreign Minister John Baird, who will make the final determination of the winning bid.

Speaking to The CJN last year after the announcement that the monument had been approved, Rabbi Daniel Friedman of Edmonton’s Beth Israel Synagogue, who is on the monument’s development council, said he expected that the structure would be “world-class and something that is an indelible mark on the Canadian nation for generations to come.”

Ottawa has said it will provide up to $4 million in matching funds to the council to help build the memorial.

For more information about the National Holocaust Memorial, visit http://www.international.gc.ca.

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